I started reading "Next" by Michael Crichton. It is a novel all about the current and future realms genetics. It is really fun. It is hard to tell which parts of the book are actual events and which are made up. Some of it I know because of the genomics class I took at the UW, but there is alot that could have happened in the last couple of years. I am liking the parts about the stem cell debate. It should be a fun read.

What came first, the Chicken or the Ape?

I recently read the book "Why is a Fly Not a Horse?" by Giuseppe Sermonti. I really enjoyed it. It gets you thinking about genetics and evolution. He has a wealth of knowledge from a lifetime of work in molecular biology. He said as a student he was a great believer in evolutionary theory and the idea that with the proper environmental pressures new species could be created from old ones. However later in life he has come to look skeptically at the "Theory of Evolution." That species can and do change themselves in response to environmental pressures is a well documented fact, but the idea that all species diverged from a single organism, or even that any single species has diverged into two distinct species is still simply an idea with no hard proof.

I enjoyed the approach he gave in that he looked into what actually distinguishes one species from another. Of course we have had it drilled into our heads that it is all about DNA. However, there is more to life and the development of an organism than its DNA. There are other factors that determine how an organism will develop that the DNA cannot control. Without going into too much detail I will mention prion diseases (DNA determines the order of amino acids, but not the shape of the protein), bee and ant colonies (many distinct classes, but all have the same DNA), butterflies (it used to be a caterpillar?), other animals which have distinctive changes upon maturation but which can still survive and reproduce in conditions that prohibit maturity, and twins (definitely the same DNA, but not the same fingerprints).

Many other interesting facts and thoughts are explored in the work, and I would recommend it to anyone who has any interest in the realm of genetics and biology. I will also add that it is a translation from Italian and it is a little difficult to read.

This One's For You, Babe!

For Micaela's benefit I had to take the nerd test. Of course, she was right, I am the bigger nerd. However, I am not a Nerd King. This is my award. (I took the advanced test.)





I hope this satisfies you all.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I've been in Seattle for several days now and it has been raining since I arrived. It seriously has not dried out enough to walk outside in socks. It just makes me homesick. At my house, it never rains for more than an hour at a time, and it is dry enough to walk on the porch after about 2 minutes. Sometimes, the water evaporates quick enough that you can even go outside in the rain and not get your feet wet. It is amazing! I'd encourage all of you to move to Colorado with us, but then we would miss the other wonderful thing about the area: the open space. Our city is quite literally surrounded by farmland. It is great.

OK, down to business. I finished reading "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters". It was an excellent work of non-fiction. It was enlightening and inspiring. As a father of a little girl, some of the facts came as a bit of a wake up call, but the advice and encouragement was wonderful and makes me excited to raise my baby. I would recommend this book to anyone. Not just fathers and not just fathers of daughters, but anyone (of course you must be mature enough to take the very frank nature of the subject matter) who wishes to understand better the relationship between men and women. It just really gets you thinking, in a good way. I'd love to hear comments on this, especially those of you who have read the book, but also all you daughters out there; what are your experiences? Discuss amongst yourselves...

Pottery Class

So, I came across a very interesting photo of myself as a child. It is very telling. This was the summer of 1978, so I was just over 1 year old. At first glance, this simply looks like a funny photo. A baby in an old tire swing being pushed in the backyard by his goofy older brothers.

However, if you look more closely, at my left hand, you will see something most shocking...

...a 9mm pistol. It appears that I owned my first firearm at the age of one! So, there you have it; it must be in my genes. There's just no fighting nature. 'Til next time, keep your eyes peeled.

Well, I finished another one. "The Tipping Point" by Malcom Gladwell was as interesting and enlightening as expected. There is some very interesting theory in their about what really makes a difference in affecting change. Sometimes it is the smallest of details that makes a big difference. I suppose this is not really a new lesson, though. Aren't we always told that it is the little things that count? There is also the oft' used analogy of a ships rudder as in the 1982 talk by Elder Thomas S. Monson, "Sailing Safely the Seas of Life" where he states:

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"As with the ship, so it is with man. The thrust of the turbines, the power of the propellers are useless without that sense of direction, that harnessing of the energy, that directing of the power provided by the rudder, hidden from view, relatively small in size, but absolutely essential in function."

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Gladwell illustrates countless examples of this same principle. It was a good reminder for me not to discredit the small details in life.

In addition to this book I have been listening to a few chapters of "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner which my wife Micaela got from the library. It is also a very interesting book which gets at issues on a deeper level. According to the book, economics is all about incentives and why people do what they do. Using this idea, the authors try to dig into the sometimes surprising and controversial motives for a lot of hidden or ignored activities. It is an interesting read in the least.

I also started reading just this evening a new book lent to me by my Mother-in-Law, Carol Johnson. The book is "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know" by Meg Meeker, M.D. It is the opinion of the author that the most important person in a girl's life is her Father. This has many consequences (some good, some bad) which she promises to explore in the book. She draws on her own experience as a daughter as well as her wealth of knowledge from observations and research as a medical doctor. I have never been a daughter (that would of course be impossible, even through the magic of modern plastic surgery), but I am a father of an incredible little girl (see previous post for picture), and so I am hoping to glean some pertinent advice from the book.

As always, if any of you have read, or are reading any of these books please leave a note with your own thoughts. My love to you all. Happy reading!

The Aftermath of Dinner

So, I've got a new book to read. This one was lent by the neighbor from accross the street, Danton Zumalt. The book is "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference," by Malcolm Gladwell. When I read "Blink," a more recent Gladwell book, there was an excerpt from "The Tipping Point" in the back which I read. It seemed to be an equally interesting read, so it is with much anticipation that I start into it for real.

Finally finished "Guns, Germs, and Steel." This one was lent to me by Carol Johnson my Mother-In-Law. It was a very interesting and enlightening book. It is great when someone with a broad background can synthesize so much information into a coherent and compelling theory. His argument for geographic determinism as an explanation to technological differences in broad populations is very good. He totally refutes any issue of racial differences. (The fact that there is no such thing as multiple human races is a scientific fact as well, but not covered in this book. There is a genetic distinction to dog breeds; there is no genetic distinction to different human races. "Race" is a purely political term, variations within any human population are greater than the variations between differing populations.) The technological differences between different human populations are determined by the geography, climate, and native resources of the area combined with the laws of human cultural evolution. (When humans began to develop culture, the need for further genetic evolution was virtually removed.) The conclusions derived from history about ideal cultural conditions for technological advancement can be also be applied to government and commercial entities. There are some real patterns illustrated in the book that confirm the superiority of the divinely inspired United States Government system and the extremely successful Microsoft business organization. I really love this type of book which can draw such broadly applicable conclusions. Overall, I found it to be full of fun and fascinating facts and well worth the read.

OK, so Micaela and Addy and I went with some friends to hike in Rocky Mountain National Park this Saturday. This is a picture of Addy and I at the top of a precarious precipice. Don't be too impressed though, while the drop to our rear is quite severe, we are in fact just 15 feet above the pavement. Still, there were some amazing views.

OK, so I dug out some old photos of the original Red Raccoon Book Club. I hope you enjoy these, especially those of you who are in them.

OK. So I finished "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". I am now starting on "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by J. K. Rowling. This is also a reread for me. My question from the end of HP 1: When does James Potter save the life of Severus Snape? I just can't remember, but Dumbledore tells Harry that it happened so it must be true. I just can't remember when we are told about it.


I took some funny pictures of Adeline today. We just upgraded her to a more user friendly model, as you can see below.

We also moved the treadmill from the upstairs bedroom over the garage where I originally assembled it all the way down to the basement. Believe me, it was no simple feet. We have a little touch up painting to do now. But, after all the blood and sweat it is finally in place. Hopefully for a very long time. The second ordeal after getting it into the basement was to power it. Our home was built with only one power outlet in the basement into which we have plugged the chest freezer and the cable modem and network router. It was also clear that the same circuit is used for all the lighting in the basement and stairwell. So I check the breaker box (for some reason located on the outside of the house and it just happens to be pouring rain at that moment) and find the breaker for the basement light circuit which does indeed control that outlet as well. However, I also find a mysterious breaker labelled "basement plugs" which doesn't seem to turn off anything (hardly surprizing since there are no basement plugs). So, I take the front off the breaker panel and discover the secret method that was employed (and not explained to the insignificant homeowners. I still think that builders should be required to provide all home buyers with a complete set of blueprints so they know what the house looks like without having to tear it apart). There is a single cable going to the basement, but it is a 4 wire rather than a 3 wire cable. The black and white wires are used to power the "basement light" circuit and of course there is the bare copper ground, but there is also a red wire powered by the breaker labelled "basement plugs" and dead ending in the basement light switch box. Once that was discovered it was simple enough to extend this new circuit out to a power outlet for the treadmill in a convenient location (I actually had wiring, junction boxes and a spare outlet among the random junk I moved with). Well, now we are all set up except for the TV Micaela wants to somehow mount down there in front of the treadmill (if you're running in a basement you may as well watch your favorite movies).

A New Beginning

So, I thought I would resurrect the old Red Raccoon Book Club in blog form. To the few of you who know what I am talking about, or the even fewer who know what the original Red Raccoon was, I send my regards. To the rest of you, welcome to the Room of the Great Ruth. I hope you enjoy your time here.

The first book I am reading is "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J. K. Rowling. (this is a reread for me.) I am also listening to the audiobook "Shalimar the Clown" by Salman Rushdie, and am pages away from finishing "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond. Feel free to read along, and post your comments as you go.